The entirety of Japanese applications Nos. Hei 11-243002 and Hei 11-243003, both filed Aug. 30, 1999, inclusive of the specification, claims and drawings of each, is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to navigation apparatus for displaying maps and performing location inputting and present vehicle position tracking along with a navigation data processor and a man-machine interface device for use therein. This invention also relates to navigation apparatus for tracking a traveling land vehicle and guiding it to its destination.
2. Prior Art
One typical navigation apparatus is disclosed in Published Unexamined Japanese Patent Application No. Hei 2-28688. This prior art navigation apparatus tracks a land vehicle and guides the vehicle for travel along a route leading to its destination while displaying a map of a specified geographical area in which a present vehicle position is located and further displays, as guidance information, a traffic intersection diagram immediately before reaching a guidance-necessary intersection along the travel route.
The above-described navigation apparatus operates by reading data from stored map data and is provided with picture drawing means for creating graphical images such as lines and filled areas and for outputting them to an associated display means in the form of video signals or RGB signals. Land vehicles are often provided with other built-in devices including functionally overlapping devices which are designed to share common functions through interconnection via a chosen network. In particular, display devices are standardized in most casesxe2x80x94for example, it is well known among those skilled in the art that a display device used to visually display television images is also adaptable for use in displaying an audio instrument panel image. Furthermore, such built-in devices may include means for graphics image creation or xe2x80x9cpicture drawingxe2x80x9d.
If the navigation apparatus is connected to a device which has its own picture drawing means, the resultant system would suffer from an extra increase in production cost as a whole. Further, in the event that data communication with a man-machine interface (MMI) is performed from the navigation apparatus by use of bit-map data, the resulting data transfer rate can delay the timing of on-screen image display by an associated output means.
The present invention has as its objective solution of the above-noted problems, and its primary objective is to enable efficient execution of data communication for land map display to thereby make it possible to smoothly perform map scrolling and rotation, even where the main body of the navigation apparatus is separated from its associated man-machine interface (MMI) unit.
To attain the foregoing objectives, the present invention provides a new and improved navigation apparatus for displaying a map which permits input of a location and allows tracking of a present position and which includes storage means for storing map data, man-machine interface means having a display memory and picture drawing means for expansion and visualization of display data and for acquiring said display data to draw it in said display memory and also for setting up and displaying a display range, and navigation data processor means for reading map data out of said storage means, for executing location input and present position tracking, and for sending to said man-machine interface means display data to be expanded and drawn in said display memory.
Further, the man-machine interface means is operable to manage a drawing range and display range of the display data and to issue to the navigation data processor means a request for transmission of additional display data before the display range goes out of the drawing range. The navigation data processor means is operable to manage a drawing range and display range of the display data and to issue to the man-machine interface means display data being rewritten before the display range goes out of the drawing range. The man-machine interface means has input means for tracking vehicle movement and for inputting of the display range and is operable to set up said display range in response to an input of the input means. The navigation data processor means sends a display range instruction to the man-machine interface means on the basis of the location input and present position.
Also disclosed herein is a navigation data processor in a navigation apparatus which includes, as independently arranged components, the navigation data processor for use in performing navigation data processing and a man-machine interface device for displaying. The navigation data processor device is adapted to read map data out of a storage device for performing location inputting and present position tracking and to output display data to said man-machine interface device wherein the display data is expanded and drawn for visualization in a display memory. The man-machine interface has a display memory and picture drawing means for expansion and visualization of the display data, for acquiring said display data from said navigation data processor and for drawing the thus converted data into the display memory while setting up and displaying a display range of the data stored in the display memory.
Additionally, the navigation apparatus of the present invention tracks a traveling vehicle and guides it to a destination and, to enable such functions, includes storage means for storing map data, a navigation data processor for reading map data out of said storage means, for tracking the traveling vehicle, and for outputting display data and various display commands for use in guidance to the destination, and man-machine interface means, having a memory, for acquiring display data and display commands as output from said navigation data processor means and then expanding and drawing them in said memory to thereby display a range as instructed. The navigation data processor includes means for converting the map data read out of said storage means into display data of a data size and graphical image type in a format as determined for the graphical image to be drawn. The edited display data includes information as to graphical images and display attributes including colors, line thickness and others features, while the display commands indicate a display center, scale or size, and direction.